Rio Tinto Shipping: the RightShip system
Bulk cargoes shipped from Rio Tinto mines represent approximately ten per cent of world seaborne dry bulk trade. In case of an accident at sea, Rio Tinto's direct legal exposure is limited, but there may be environmental, safety and reputational risks.
Rio Tinto Shipping and BHP Billiton Freight Trading & Logistics have formed a vetting service company, RightShip Pty Ltd, to deliver an enhanced ship vetting capability and raise marine safety standards throughout the world.
The RightShip system draws together information from reliable sources around the globe. Extensive criteria about each ship is analysed, providing a comprehensive picture about the vessel, its history, condition, management, and performance. This information is weighted for importance and benchmarked against regulatory standards to derive a risk rating for the ship. Information is updated electronically each quarter or manually adjusted during the intervening period. This ensures that as a vessel ages, is involved in an incident, changes name or its ownership, it is re-rated using the latest information available.
In 2003 RightShip won the e-commerce award at the Australian Shipping and Transport awards in Sydney.
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